On college football.

Whoa, Nellie! This is a real granddaddy

LOS ANGELES — The two coaches exchanged handshakes and hellos Friday morning while crossing paths in a hotel lobby.

Texas' Mack Brown had just told reporters he wanted his players to smile and show their personalities as they prepared for the Rose Bowl: "You can dance a little bit. You can have some fun."

Minutes later, USC's Pete Carroll would speak of the "beautiful Rose Bowl" and say that with all the monumental games his team has played, this one would be "business as usual for us."

Business as usual? Nice try.

Mellow Mack and Peaceful Pete might be determined to give off those low-stress vibes, but the reality is that Wednesday night their teams will take the field for the most important game of their lives.

And it even goes beyond that. Observers much older and wiser than me will tell you there never has been a college football game like this, and maybe never will be again. Consider:

- Top-ranked USC enters with a 34-game winning streak. Second-ranked Texas has won 19 in a row.

- The Trojans are averaging 50 points per game, second in the land. Texas is first, at 50.9.

- USC won its final regular-season game by 47 points over UCLA. Texas hammered Colorado by 67.

- USC was down 21-3 to Arizona State and came back to win 38-28. Texas trailed Oklahoma State 28-9 and surged to a 47-28 victory.

- Did we mention that the game features the reigning Heisman Trophy winner (Reggie Bush), the Heisman runner-up (Vince Young) and the 2004 winner (Matt Leinart)? Or that USC is gunning for its third consecutive AP national title? No team has done that.

And they're playing in a game that has been around since 1902, making it 26 years older than Keith Jackson, who will call his 14th Rose Bowl for ABC.

"The question came up the other day: Has there ever been another game that had more on it or more hype?" Jackson said. "The answer is no. . . . I think this one goes down as an all-time all-timer."

The story lines are almost limitless, as are the number of touchdowns that could be scored.

When Carroll was asked whether he has coached in a game with two offenses like this, he replied: "Heck, no, man. There are no matchups like this. You don't see numbers like this other than in video games. There are so many explosive players on both sides."

Guess that explains why Texas has had 10 one-play touchdown drives this season. And why USC is averaging 580.3 yards per game, 109 beyond the school record.

"I haven't seen anything that would compare to the anxiety of the game," ESPN analyst Lou Holtz said. "Look at this: USC was No. 1 preseason, Texas was No. 2, and it never changed the entire year. Everyone said these would be the two best teams in the entire country, and they were. How often does that happen?"

It's just the second time in the 70-plus-year history of the AP poll. Last season was the first, but USC obliterated the 1-vs.-2 talk when it clobbered Oklahoma 55-19 in the Orange Bowl.

"There's a distinction between the matchup of the century and what turns out to be the game of the century," ESPN's Chris Fowler said. "We hyped the heck out of last year's Oklahoma-USC game, too, and that wasn't even the game of the day."

Good point. But there was an explanation for that debacle, or at least a theory.

Oklahoma's play reflected its high-strung coach, Bob Stoops. The tightly wound Sooners stumbled on the big stage, fumbling three times and throwing three interceptions.

There's no guarantee the same thing won't happen this time.

Then again, maybe both teams will be loose. Perhaps the Trojans will reflect Peaceful Pete and the Longhorns will mirror Mellow Mack.

"We have nice kids, SC has nice kids," Brown said. "What a great time for them to show college football fans and [younger] kids that you can smile. You don't have to walk around scared and act tough all the time."